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Some early fans of Media Molecule’s Dreams will be getting access to the creation platform this week while a wider beta kicks off in January.

The first invites go out on Dec. 18 to folks who signed up for Media Molecule’s newsletter (you had to sign up before Dec. 7) while sign-ups for everyone else “will go live on January 4th. Those who sign-up will be invited to join the beta in waves during the week of January 8th and though we cannot guarantee space for everyone, we will try our best.”

While we’ve heard in the past that VR support will be included with the full launch of the PlayStation 4-based creation software, an FAQ for the beta reiterates that VR support won’t be included in the beta at all.

“We’ll have more details about VR for Dreams closer to launch,” the FAQ explains.

VRGineers is soliciting the feedback of Youtubers and their audiences on a “Gaming Edition” of their ultra-high end XTAL system.

We reached out to VRgineers for comment on videos we’ve seen surfacing from VR YouTube streamers VoodooDE, MRTV, and SweViver and a representative of the company confirmed they “started cooperation with selected VR youtubers, enthusiasts and superusers to learn the needs and expectations of the ideal gaming VR headset”.

The current XTAL headset is intended for enterprise, priced at a staggering $5,500. It uses dual 2560×1440 OLED panels with a field of view claimed to be around 180°. It also features eye tracking which enables its automatic mechanical IPD adjustment feature (also seen on StarVR One), as well as built in Leap Motion optical finger tracking.

The ‘Gaming Edition’ is purported to be a lower cost version for high end PC gamers, removing features such as automatic IPD and likely reducing the specifications. The target price is unknown, but the headset would likely be a direct competitor to the Pimax 8K, another high end consumer VR offering. These YouTube personalities are the same ones Pimax chose to beta test their high end headset.

The original Super Mario Bros. has never looked this good. If you aren’t familiar with the concept of a video game emulator, this magical piece of software (or hardware) allows a computer system, also called the “host,” to operate like a particular video game platform. By using these emulators to run the ROM file of

Firewall Zero Hour is easily one of the best VR games of the year and it proves that Sony’s scrappy PSVR headset is capable of some high-caliber shooter action — especially when paired with the excellent PS Aim controller. We’ll be hopping back into Firewall today to try out the brand new Containment map, which releases today for free, and to check out various DLC skins and trinkets.

We’ll be playing Firewall Zero Hour online on PSVR using two a PS Aim controller. We’re starting right around 1:00 PM PT and we’ll aim to last for about an hour or more. We’ll be livestreaming directly to the UploadVR Twitch page where you can interact with us directly and chat among yourselves. Streaming is something we’re going to double down on doing more often very soon so you should get in on the ground floor of our Twitch community early! You can see the full stream embedded right here down below once it’s up:

Watch live video from UploadVR on www.twitch.tv

You can see our most recent past archived streams over on the UploadVR Twitch archive right here. There’s lots of good stuff there!

Let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next and don’t forget to follow the Twitch channel and sign up for notifications.

MelodyVR enlists the former boy band member for their first live VR concert. Liam Payne, former member of English-Irish boy band One Direction, is hosting a secret concert for a small handful of lucky fans somewhere in London, U.K. tomorrow evening; and while a majority of the Payne fans will unfortunately be unable to attend

In August 2016 IMAX Chief B.D. Officer Rob Lister revealed an exciting forecast for the company’s VR plans. He envisioned a world in which the latest blockbusters would be accompanied by VR ‘companion pieces’, which moviegoers could see alongside the film for a slightly higher price. He name-dropped movies like Avatar 2 and directors such as Christopher Nolan, saying they would give creators VR cameras to shoot this content. Like the traditional IMAX experience, the company wanted to create high-end movies that gave you a reason to visit theaters.

Nearly two and a half years on, IMAX VR is dead.

Following a sheepish roll out in 2017, IMAX spent the latter half of 2018 slowly dismantling its handful of global locations. Despite a positive reaction from customers, the company had already expressed disappointment in the numbers of visitors it had managed to attract. By November, it was down to less than half of the centers it had initially opened. The writing had been on the wall for some time.

But how can other location-based VR businesses even hope to succeed if a giant like IMAX can fail?

To me, this is a cautionary tale in the importance of creating a focused vision for location-based VR. IMAX may have had grand plans, but a failure to deliver on them as well as some questionable partnerships, mixed messaging and an underwhelming content selection led to the death of its VR dream.

Of the 17 experiences currently listed on IMAX’s VR webpage, at least 13 can be seen at home. None of them tie into Avatar 2, none of them are directed by Christopher Nolan. The site’s featured image (seen above) teases a multiplayer lightsaber battle akin to Star Wars: The Force Awakens but the corresponding app is really the two-year-old Trials on Tatooine demo, which lasts for 10 minutes and is free to download on Steam. The sole ‘made for IMAX’ experience is a clunky Justice League game that you can also get at home.

IMAX made it clear that these initial centers were experimental launches as part of a pilot program to test the waters, but it never really backed them up with the content to support them. Over the past two years, location-based ‘competitor’ (if there is such a thing at this stage of the market) The Void created buzz with original bleeding-edge Ghostbusters, Wreck-It Ralph and, yes, Star Wars experiences that generated headlines even before they were even launched. Dave and Buster’s $5 Jurassic World experience has been a hugely successful launch for the company while Dreamscape Immersive is now rolling out an adventure-driven location with its own original content. Elsewhere, Spaces lets you paste your own face onto a virtual Terminator. IMAX, meanwhile, did run eSports-style tournaments, but these relied on the same content it was already offering.

Much of these company’s successes and hopes are down to/pinned on originality, exclusivity and IP, but hardware is a factor too. The Void’s tech allows up to four people to enter the same space, wave to each other as Stormtroopers, and then physically

Oculus Go is a decent bit of VR kit for $199, but it’s no secret that the headset is a little short on ‘full’ gaming experiences. Whereas Go’s bigger brother, Oculus Rift, is populated with blockbusters like Lone Echo and Superhot VR, Facebook’s first standalone headset is aimed more at casual users, with its limited power and tracking making it a challenge to bring popular genres like first-person shooters to the headset.

But two recent releases prove it can be done.

Last week saw the launch of Theta Legion and Slightly Heroes on Oculus Go. The former is a short single-player tribute to classic first-person shooters like Doom and Quake, whereas the latter is an arena-based multiplayer hero shooter akin to something like Overwatch. Both feature smooth locomotion and, you know what? Both play pretty darn well.

In the case of Theta Legion, you navigate a series of narrow hallways and rooms, taking out drones and aliens that have been gloriously designed to resemble the early 2D imagery of the games that inspired it. It’s just a handful of levels that won’t take you long to see through, but it’s free and using the Go’s motion controller to aim guns and reload feels great. I missed the ability to lean away from incoming fire like I would on PC VR (in fact I would instinctively dodge and feel a little ill for it) but the overall package gets close enough to the full FPS experience to be worth your time.

Slightly Heroes, though, is arguably the more impressive of the two. Not only does it offer the full multiplayer deathmatch experience in VR, but it holds up incredibly well next to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive versions of the game that also launched last week. It consists of short matches in small levels, but offers a robust progression system and some of the best visuals on the platform. Twisting the Go controller to quickly spin around works well and, even though I couldn’t bring a gun up to my line of sight for true aiming, I became a natural with the Go controller in no time.

Admittedly both games do struggle with the uneasy navigation afforded by Go’s touchpad (which was a major reason that we didn’t take so well to last month’s big Go release, Covert), but what’s been achieved with both remains incredibly impressive.

What Go could use now is a bigger game that draws on these learnings, perhaps tying into Oculus’ existing suite of shooter games like Damaged Core or Arktika.1. As it stands, these games paint a positive picture for Go in 2019, especially if Oculus Quest’s arrival encourages more developers to further downscale their projects to fit the platform. If you’re a Go owner in search of more ‘hardcore’ gaming experiences, don’t pass them up.

Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate.

Sorry for the hiatus! Until recently the comments on our website were down and not functioning properly, but now that they’re back and working I thought it was time to start up the discussions once again!

Spurred in part by the recent release of Borderlands 2 VR on PSVR, I want to talk about the PS Move controllers. Borderlands 2 VR allows players to use the PS Move controllers instead of the DualShock 4, if they want, but it’s a less than ideal experience. Similar to how they worked in Skyrim VR you’ve got to press a button and point your left hand to move around and press the X and O buttons on your right hand to rotate from left to right. It just feels wonky.

With enough practice you can alright, as shown in my gameplay video here, but it’s less than ideal. The lack of analog sticks feels like a major missing feature. There’s also the question of ergonomics, battery life, and all of the other design considerations.

We’ve seen enough patents and read enough statements to know that Sony is already working on the PlayStation 5 and probably a new iteration of the PSVR headset as well. So, with that will hopefully come brand new motion controllers. If that’s the case: What do you want out of PS Move 2.0?

Are the current models enough for you, or do want/need more? What elements from Vive, Knuckles, and Touch would you want carried over to PS Move?

Let us know what you think of PS Move and what you want from PS Move 2.0 down in the comments below!

Borderlands 2 VR was the last big new VR game of the year. It just released about a week ago for PSVR and even though it lacks any of the DLC and co-op support, in addition to the PS Aim controller inexplicably not being supported, it’s still a solid and fun adventure. Borderlands 2 was already a great game and despite the issues, VR really does add to the experience. Claptrap is still as hilarious as ever.

Since a lot of people will be introduced to the PSVR through this game or will be playing this game for the first time, we wanted to round up some key tips to help you get started.

Experiment With Movement and Comfort Settings

Borderlands 2 VR on PSVR has four basic control schemes. The most familiar for most people, especially if you played the game outside of VR previously, will be the standard DualShock 4 method. This is essentially the same as playing outside of VR, however you have added head-tracking to assist with aiming and increase immersion. But if you have a PSVR headset then chances are you want something a bit more engaging than that, which is where the PS Move comes into play.

Unfortunately the PS Move controllers do not have analog sticks so no matter what you choose it’s gonna be a bit wonky. You can either have teleport only movement, full smooth movement with teleporting optional, or full smooth movement with jumping. Then on top of those options you can tweak everything from the movement and rotation speed to whether or not the field of view dims around your vision at all. If you don’t suffer from motion sickness we recommend turning all of those safeguards off like you see in the gameplay video above.

The end result is something similar to Skyrim VR on PSVR, but hopefully they add PS Aim support sometime soon.

Don’t Get Too Attached To Guns

Borderlands 2 VR is a looter shooter. That means that the whole game is designed around you looting brand new guns constantly every few minutes. All of the weapons are randomly generated in terms of their visual aesthetic, damage, accuracy, elemental type, rate of fire, and more so it’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever find two guns that are just alike. It’s a bit like Diablo, but in shooter form.

So even if you’ve been using that same rocket launcher for a while now you should be prepared to give it up and try something new sooner rather than later. The one exception to this rule is if you’ve sunk dozens of hours into the game and grinding for specific legendary weapons that are the de facto best guns — those you might want to hang onto.

Use Your Abilities Often

Borderlands 2 VR is unlike a lot of other shooters in that, even though there are lots of guns to shoot, you shouldn’t actually spend all of your time just pulling the trigger. All four of the characters play wildly differently with their specific classes and varied skill

If you’re fed up of the Christmas spirit and want to get back to the bloodthirsty videogame murderizing we enjoy for the rest of the year, then you might want to check out this new trailer for Undead Citadel.

The game’s being developed by Dark Curry (great name) and appears to be a medieval-era zombie slayer. We really don’t know that much about it but the impressive visuals seen in this teaser clip caught our eye. It sounds like someone called Carnax has perhaps transported you back in time to face off with hordes of the undead. The developer says the game will focus on “physics driven close/ranged” combat.

We’ll no doubt learn more about Undead Citadel in the coming year, though you can already sign up to a newsletter via the game’s official website. We also got the featured image from the developer’s own website which reveals that this team also worked on goal-saving VR game, Final Soccer. That’s quite a switch in tone.